For me the world is as mathematical as geometric imagery. The world is mystical, nah, miraculous in how it is woven together. Maybe mathematics gives you that sense too. Thanks for the conversation!

You continually conflate math with physics and I continually note that this is a category error. — fishfry

I read this same argument in Kant recently. He wants mathematics to come from our intuition of the world yet doesn't believe the second antimony must apply to appearance. The only reason you don't want math to fully apply to reality is because you suspect a problem with infinite divisibility, right? Is not 5 yards minus 3 yards 2 yards? Always, forever? Is not 5 feet minus 3 feet 2 feet? I can get smaller and smaller. There is no reason it should end. You want math to apply to the world when they build bridges but won't go all the way, saying instead there is some invisible indeterminate line across which we can't do math. And you say this without a supporting argument. I don't buy it

I'm not a big fan of matter. How nice it would be to exist without being subject to the vicissitudes of objects - massive, medium size and subatomic - clashing and banging all around you, wantonly careening at you, and roiling inside you without regard for the effect it all has on you. Matter doesn't care at all about me, so why should I respect it? Well, I do respect some of it - nice people, a lovely beach, a perfect avocado, and some jazz records and math books. But most of the rest of it, phooey! One thing for sure, no one ever involved in a head on automobile accident ever said, "Thank the universe for the laws of physics". — TonesInDeepFreeze

An incredible paragraph. You're not just a mathematician

So they're mapping the infinite plane onto a finite disk by projecting it through a sphere — fishfry

Would it be mathematically possible to project an infinite plane unto a "discrete chunk" (to use QM language)? To me this sounds like a contradiction, but "discrete space" seems like a contradiction to me as well. If it's spatial it has parts. Is discrete defined well in mathematics? Again, they use it in QM.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl-iyuSw9KM&t=235s&pp=2AHrAZACAcoFCkNjYyBzYWJpbmU%3D

Thanks for your response. The above video is very interesting but it's minute 2 I'm concerned with. This is how i see all geometric objects, and all objects in general actually. It's not as if i recoil in horror before matter itself, but i don't understand why something in mathematics so simple cannot be explained to me as if I were 8. Maybe I'm just neurally divergent. I've teased apart the finite from the infinite in an object, and in putting them together I find them contradictory, as have many philosophers in history, Hegel being one of them. Good day

Engineering claringly uses math as if it applies to reality. You seem to be saying there is nothing contradictory about continuums or that there would only be such only if they were in the real world. So then there is something about physical matter that in its properties is not entirely mathematical as we understand that. That may be true, although I would like to hear reasons why some day. Where do we draw the line when applying math to matter? How do we know we've gone too far?

String theory vs loop quantum gravity. One has little points that are really strings (1 dimension in 0 dimension?) And the other discrete space. The biggest question in physics (quantum gravity) wants to settle the question of the continuum. They don't want to just throw their hands up

the real numbers are defined as the continuum. They can be proven to exist within set theory, but that has no bearing on what's true in the real world. — fishfry

Some things obviously apply to the world. It is often said that there are no perfect shapes in the world. But we can mentally draw a perfect shape WITHIN any object although there it is surrounded by OTHER matter. The shape does exist as a part of another thing

Those are great logicians, great intellectual achievements. And a lot more (not necessarily in chronological order): Predecessors: Boole, De Morgan, Peirce, Cantor, Peano, Dedekind, Frege. Then Lowenheim, Skolem, Whitehead & Russell — TonesInDeepFreeze

It seems to me the foundation of mathematics is the number 1. Even zero is understood as compared to one. Zen masters wrote with one hand while erasing with the other, that is they used concepts to go beyond concepts. If Godel is widely misunderstood, the blame falls on those who explain it because i've seen many contradictory explanations of it (although I get a strong feeling you know what you're talking about). To see reality as one is to understand all duality in a higher sense. Godel might have proven something about human conceptual thinking but I am not sure his theorems are ontological per sé. The concept of strange loop comes to mind. In the philosophy of Zen, there is oneness (1), emptiness(0), and interconnection (web of concepts unsupported by 1, that is they are supported by zero). So the whole scheme of rationality will eat itself, especially with the projectory given by Mr. Godel himself. The final goal of minds within history is not to find an endless task. It would be great if we could base all of mathematics on the Whitehead-Russell argument in Principia Mathematica that 1 plus 1 equala 2. More complex steps from the must simple of ideas

Your picture of all of this is much too woozy — TonesInDeepFreeze

I am sorry if that is true

That makes no sense and is wrong: (1) By definition, a theorem is a statement that has a proof. (2) Incompleteness is not that there are statements that are unprovable "in any way". Rather, incompleteness is that if T is a consistent, formal theory that is sufficient for a certain amount of arithmetic, then there are statements in the language for T that are not provable in T. That does not preclude that statements not provable in T are provable in another theory — TonesInDeepFreeze

But do not Godel's theorems preclude proving everything in mathematics, assuming it's a consistent science, from the ground up. Systems don't exist in isolation. So if you can't prove it in one prove it in the other. And if the second had unprovable assumptions, move to the third? Where does it end? Logicism wanted to prove all of it from self evident logic, from bottom to top. Wasn't that dream shattered by Godel?

Thanks for the book recomendations

Hi. Finding quotes from Cantor on the internet with an apparent reliable source is difficult. There are lots of "quotes" out there but which are actually his? I don't know. Do you accept Wikipedia as a reliable source?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_infinite

I think the website is, generally, pretty accurate. Maybe you can explain some of the technical parts of it to us. Be that as it may be, it seems unlikely that so msny sources are wrong to claim that Cantor believed Absolute Infinity was divinity and that the mathematics in our minds express a truth about truth itself, truth bring divinity. See the link for some details. I don't have any problem with Cantor. I find his story fascinating and ideas on infinity always amaze me. This has a connection with Godel. As Roger Penrose has argued, the human intellect is non-computational, while Godel's arguments and most mathematics is not. He says basically "where can i look for the non-conputational substrate except in the quantum world". Well that world may be the realm of heaven. We can see it as dark OR light. My point is that what can not be proven in systems may be proven in a higher, err, place or state. Kant divided the mind into understanding and reason (logos). Nous may be a even higher stage when as the faculties work with together without separation ("not two"). Maybe i'm nuts but you can research the Penrose on Godel and Cantor stuff by asking AI where to go to find more information. Let me know what you find if you dig deeper in that mine. I too find it unfitting that there be theorems in mathematics that can never be proven in any way. Can there be a vision of mathematics that sees beyond our structure of systems?

I had no intention of misrepresenting you, but how many times over the years have we debated Zeno? Several for sure. It's not about supertasks. The cylinder simply lies there and the question of what color the top is after we notice it alternates from blue to purple is a basic arithematic geometric question that is so basic i suspect it has no answer. I'd gladly be proven wrong. But it seems the discussion always ends the same way. Is not the clash between string theory and loop quantum gravity largely about this? String theory says there the most basic thing is a zero dimensional string. Which is obviously a contradiction in terms. LQG says there is discrete space, but this suffers the exact same fate. We ARE the very union of finite and infinite, so we can not make sense of Zeno for this reason. So your response about supertasks was just another dodge in another year on a different, to my mind, with Zeno sitting firmly in place. Peaceful

Those are videos that are of the caliber of claiming that Cantor was a nutcase based on the fact that he was in sanitarium.
6h — TonesInDeepFreeze

Ive never seen such a video. And i was supporting Cantor so i dont know what you are talking about. As for seeing beyond mathematics, when i pressed fishfry on Zeno, he said uh oh let's not discuss it. Do you have the same answer?

Would you say that having freedom is dependent on being ignorant about some things? — wonderer1

We are lost because we are free, so say the existentialists

You're serious? You haven't caught on to the fact that such AI bots are so often horribly wrong and fabricate regularly? — TonesInDeepFreeze

No because i hardly ever ever use them. I don't have original sources for quotes by them; I had learned a little about them from internet videos. I've never claimed to have other than secondary sources, but if you search quotes by Cantor on the internet, there are these:

"The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds."

"A set is a Many that allows itself to be thought of as a One."

Again I don't know if these are in his original writings. I do most of my research from actual books. But I was trying to add something philosophical to the debate

I don't know what relationship you have in mind between the quote of fishfry (refuted by me) and the quote of me, especially since neither references absolute infinity — TonesInDeepFreeze

I thought fishfry was referencing the set of all sets and numbers, and you seemed to wonder how we can go without being able to prove mathematics as a total system. For Cantor google says God is beyond all mathematics (a 0 or a 1?) yet completes all of the theory of numbers and sets. This is very Pythagorean. Only a special infinity can subsume the whole of math

Cantor thought the absolute infinity was God. I don't know if he ever claimed it was the whole story of mathematics.

Don't recall reading whether Gödel had an opinion on the matter. I don't think the concept of absolute infinity was relevant by Gödel's time — fishfry

Well from what I've been reading from secondary sources God is the infinity model for all infinities for Cantor. Godel had his ontological proof too, but i would have to check Chatgpt for more info

"
Cantor believed that God's infinity is the beginning and end of all other infinities, and that God's knowledge makes all infinity finite in some way.

Cantor believed that God put the concept of numbers into the human mind, and that the existence of numbers in God's mind was the basis for their existence in humans

Cantor's views on God were important to his defense of his theory of the transfinite, and he used his conception of God to motivate his conception of infinity in mathematics

Cantor believed that God put the concept of numbers into the human mind, and that the existence of numbers in God's mind was the basis for their existence in humans.

Cantor linked the absolute infinite, which is a number greater than any other quantity, with God"
Google AI

Your principle leads directly to a contradiction. The restriction needed to patch the problem is restricted comprehension, which would already require there to be an infinite set that's a superset of the infinite set you wish to conjure. Without the axiom of infinity, THERE IS NO SET containing all the natural numbers — fishfry

Every arithmetical statement is either true or false. There is a function that determines the truth or falsehood of every arithmetical statement. But, of course, it's not a computable function. The truth or falsehood of every arithmetical statement is determined, but there are arithmetical statements of which we could never find the determination. It's as if those statements and their determinations are "out there floating around" but I can't visualize what it means that they are true or false except that I know there is a function that determines them — TonesInDeepFreeze

Did not Godel and Cantor believe that once one sees Absolute Infinity he knows all (the whole story of mathematics)?

Achilles and the tortoise combine the "fact" (?) of infinite divisibility of space with the arrow paradox. The latter doesn't seem to understand propulsion and inertia but the former has always confused me. I would expect there to be something discrete and yet still space at the bottom of divisibility, but that seems like a contradiction in terms. Discrete can only mean points (it would seem). And sure, you can say that you imagine an infinity of them in a finite space, but you cant really imagine anything infinite. Only reason can understand the infinite, not imagination (it would seem). So how does the principle of infinity unite with the principle of finitude in order to have a geometrical object? To put it philosophically..

The difference between an arithematic infinity and a spacial/geometric one is that in the former the numbers have no spatial size and can thus sum to a finite sum. In the latter there are infinite instantiated steps, hence Zeno.

Most people seem to think Zeno was a minor philosopher. He was actually the first in the West to write a book of philosophy as that is understood in the modern sense. No one before him asked questions about the infinite like that. He was a Newton of his time. To think of infinite division back then was incredible. We still debate this today

Could you calculate the speed in all infinite steps — MoK

The arrow paradox says each is zero, as in time "points". Yet there is still the forward motion of the action, driven by energy

The thing about Zeno's paradoxes is that there is no finite time involved. The time would be divided infinitely just as much as the space or distance. Kant's second antinomy is Zeno's paradox. Maybe Banach-Tarski is too, idn. Everything becomes like infinite balloons stretching without end as they stay in space. Discrete space sounds like the answer for whomever don't like that acid nondual or whatever approach. It's hard to say what a discrete thing would be if it couldn't be divided. The back and forth would end. "Now space does not consist of simple parts, but of spaces. Thus every part of the composite must occupy a space. But the absolutely primary parts of the composite are simple. Thus the simple occupies space. Now since everything real that occupies a space contains within itself a manifold of elements external to one another..." Kant (second antinomy, antithesis).

I still think the mathematics used in physics can already address this question. What about Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC). Penrose explains how the universe goes from the big bang to infinity, how we can used compactification to bring the infinite into the finite, and have a finite beginning after the infinite "forgets" it's infinite (his idea). Relations between that which ends and that which doesn's is the essence of this debate

The books you've recommended sound very interesting. I think Kant was right in saying that mathematics involves time (that is, process, synthesis). To *analyze* one plus one equals two is just to give a verbal description of having one and one. Mathematics is more than that. If i have 1 and see another 1, i have 1 and 1 and i "call that 2". But 1 added! to 1 EQUALS two because there is something in the addition that is synthetic instead of having backwards analysis. I realized this when i was trying to remember how i first used numbers. Mathematics is synthesis and analysis, but it's core meaning is synthesis it seems. I wonder how this relates to logicism

Thanks for the superb reply. The reason i brought up Hawking's "no boundary" thesis is that i was thinking maybe geometry and limits are incomplete by themselves and need the 4 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension in order to make sense of it. That is, mathematicians assume math can stand on its own, but maybe it can't. However i also now see how the physics can be in trouble where maybe the math isn't. You've explained with the cylinder how the top of it is the limit such that if i metaphorically touch it with my finger i am touching a point limit. However if we bring in time and do the series Zenonian as i proposed (one at a time), and with each new slisce changed the color of the new slice, i can ask "what color" the top of the cylander would be. This causes a problem *because* it is a process and processes aren't used like that in mathematics. But again, Hawking had the thesis from the 80's that 5 dimensions (4 spacial Euclidean ones and 1 temporal one that acts as space and uses "imaginary time" as he says) wherein there is no before of time (as there is no north of the North Pole) express a hologram such that 2 dimensions are projected from the 5 dimensions infinitely far away. I know it's unorthodox, but why can't this been seen purely from it's mathematical side and brought into mathematics itself? Hawking explained away indeterminacy with this idea.The lines here seem rather blurry to me, but i read of mathematics mostly from the historical perspective, although i started working through a discrete mathematics textboom recently.

I will be thinking about your reply and other posts on this thread throughout the day

I dont think that a real number can't be divided infinitely. The area of a circle is pi-r-squared wherein pi represents an aspect of space (the area). Each decimal would be a tiny and tinier slice of space and this goes on forever. So the space represents the number as we visualize it and the the number represents the space. Infinity is in both.

As for Hawking, physical explanations shed light on mathematical concepts just as the reverse is true.

"But nobody in that century or the next could adequately explain what an infinitesimal was. Newton had called them 'evanescent divisible quantities,' whatever that meant. Leibniz called them 'vanishingly small,' but that was just as vague.. Pierre Bayle's 1696 article on Zeno drew the skeptical conclusion that, for the reasons given by Zeno, the concept of space is contradictory."
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

If there are no infinitesimals, than an infinity of zeros can equal anything. Does this mean that 0×infinity=everything? But an argument against infinitesimals and discreteness is that space by definition is that which is divisible. How can there be something in-between space and a point? Where do we even begin with a continuum? (At least Banach-Tarski's paradox makes more sense in this context) Geometric objects seem to be in themselves the opposite of Gabriel's horn. Instead of an infinite surface area for a finite volume we seem to have in the continuum an infinity of space bounded by finite (beginning and end) space

More latter..

If i cut a cake horizontally starting from the halfway point upwards with each slice being half the size of the one immediately below, what would the top of the cake look like? Isn't it indefinite? But you can definitely look at the cake, from all angles, and see that it has definite position in relation to its parts. So how do we reconcile the indefinite with the definite? I think this is what must be asked about the continuum. Hawking would say that four dimensional Euclidean space, with a time dimension that both 1) acts as space, and 2) is described by imaginary numbers, gives an answer to this question. That is to say, the universe as a whole gives the answer to the continuum. But how do imaginary numbers relate to geometry?

So if no real number is an infinitesimal, numbers are then what is relation to geometry. Is 2 then 2 points, or are all numbers a point?

According to Wki both Cauchy (in Cours d'Analyse) and Edwars Nelson also compared infinite points to the numberline. Long before hyperreals i believe. The great writer and philosopher George Berkeley rejected infinitesimals on both mathematical and philosophical grounds

What about imaginary numbers, however? Stephen Hawking, in his attempt at find the wave function of the universe, proposed his (yep) No Boundary Proposal in 1983. I like to apply this "theorem" to consciousness. Hawking uses imaginary numbers to describe time as it goes backwards, behind the Big Bang. How are we to understand mathematically a state not having any boundaries? There is always a "here" and "there" in our experience. That is, except in consciousness wherein we can go deeper and deeper and we find no edge. The "limit" seems to be death, but in our experience we are infinite. Hence we can think about infinities..

Note: if the world is a hologram, then it is proven there is a "thing-in-itself".

The kalam cosmological argument gives a great example of infinities embedded in another. The argument fails in its purpose because eternity, an infinity, contains all steps of infinity. There can be that infinity if there is the eternity. QED?

Just some philosophy and context for this forum

"Thomas Reid's excellent book, Inquiry into the Human Mind... affords us a very thorough conviction of the inadequacy of the senses for producing the objective perception of things, and also of the non-empirical origin of the intuition of space and time. Reid refutes Locke's teaching that perception is a product of the senses. This he does by a thorough and acute demonstration that the collective sensations of the senses do not bear the least resemblance to the world known through perception, and in particular by showing that Locke's five primary qualities (extension, figure, solidity, movement, number) cannot possibly be supplied to us by any sensation of the senses..." The World as Will and Representation, Vol. II, Ch. 2

I have some thoughts on perception that i wanted to post, so here it goes. It seems to me that there has to be a core ability/principle in man that turns raw sensation into perception. If colors are all in the head then an object doesn't "look like" anything. But then our eyes, perhaps the greatest organ, does not know reality. Does it see shape at least? In combination with touch, perhaps. But colors are just as much "there in front of us" as the solidity on which the colors lie. Things wouldn't even be black and white or translucent on there own. "In themselves" no sight could see them. So it seems to me that that there must be a soul in man that sees through the eyes and touches the object of vision in ocular activity. Science says all we see is light and that the objects are images in the brain (the world is in the brain?). George Berkeley was key in the development of this. But when I say soul I
Do not necessarily mean something spiritual. It could be a core principle that is more than spiritual (actually divine) or it could be a material principle (stemming from QM?) which is even more truly material than the world we are trying to know. That there is something unique in man in this way (although unique only as special and foundational, for animals may have it too) can be shown by how children learn language. We all know that if we come across ancient scrolls on which is written a language unlike any we know, we could never translate it. Yet this is the very situation a child is in. If i show a toddler a ball and say "ball", how does the child know that the word ball refers to that object instead of only to its extension, firure, solidity, or number. If i say to him "you jumped", how does he know the word "you" doesn't apply to the jumping? Of course this all happens in a complex context over time, but i still believe everyone would be autistic so to say without a natural core principle uniting our minds to each other. Even if a child is resting on the mother's breast and she says "love" as the child is feeling love, could not the word love mean rather "mother" instead of the act of love itself. Without a place to start we could never have common communication with each other. So I believe and think that we all have bodies that have all kind of natural intelligences in them, and the that mind is a limitless faculty that is designed to know people and the world itself. If we can't know the world, how can we know other people?

Kant quite clearly, after he read Hume, doubted the reality of everything except for his brain. Just as Descartes had done. Kant had logic while Descartes had mathematics. They both seem quite Platonic to me in that they doubted the contingent while holding on to the necessary. Yet Descartes was able to convince himself that a perfect divine Will existed while Kant was unable to prove he was once a baby craddled in his mother's arms. Descartes convinced himself by pure reason that perfect Will could not deceive him, while Kant relied on senses and understanding to hold on to his isolated ego. Descartes didn't seem to have a genuine "relationship" with a deity so maybe he was in the same spot. Descartes's philosophy entails that we can know material things but not all their components (noumena?). For Aristotle form and matter are a union resulting in a substance, but what we perceive is the accidents. The difference between Aristotle and the other two is that the accidents reveal something about the substance. Modern physics seems to disagree in that the space-time/vacuum is unknowable in itself. Night time thoughts..

Hegel on Kant's philosophy:

"The other side, in contrast, is the independence of the thinking that grasps itself, the principle of freedom, which this philosophy has in common with the metaphysics of older tradition; but it empties all the content out of it, and is unable to put anything back into it. Being robbed of all determinations, this thinking, now called 'reason', is set free from all authority. The main effect of Kant's philosophy has been has been that it has revived the consciousness of this absolute inwardness. In that, because of its abstraction, this inwardness cannot develop into anything, and cannot produce by its own mean any determinations, either cognitions or moral laws, it refuses all together to allow something that has the character of outwardness to have full play in it, and to be valid for it. From now on the principle of the independence of reason, of its absolute inward autonomy, has to be regarded as the universal principle of philosophy, and as one of the assumptions of our times." The Lesser Logic

For Hegel, Kant made the world into a lie, something that deceives, and did not allow reason access to the intellect in order that it could circumvent the traps of the understanding. Kant merely gives an inventory of the understanding instead of uniting freedom with thought. Why the understanding is how it is is never explained by Kant. It is truly the outside world provides the "shock" which the unconscious needs into order to become conscious. The non-Ego is as important to Ego as Ego is to itself. Our bodies are, in a sense, non-Ego. We are a part of this world and so Kant thought we could not solve the mystery of existence because we were part of the mystery. Whether he suceeded or not, Hegel's philosophy was an attempt to deduce the essence of existence itself

Eloquent, but it doesn't really address the issue i've raised. I'll let Christopher Hitchens speak for me here:

"I don't believe that it's true that religion is ethical or moral.. Is it moral to believe that your sins, yours and mine ladies and gentleman, brothers and sisters, can be forgiven by the punishment of another person? Is it ethical to believe that? I would submit that the doctrine of vivarious redemption by human sacrifice is utterly immoral. I might if I wished, if i knew any of you, you were my friends, or even if I didn't know you but just loved the idea of you, I could say "look, I'll pay your debts for you. Maybe you'll pay me back some day but for now I can get you out of trouble." I could, if I really loved someone who had been sentenced to prison, if I could find a way of saying "I'd serve your sentence" I'd try and do it. I could do what Sydney Carton does in the Tale of Two Cities, if you like. I'm very unlikely to do this unless you've been incredibly sweet to me, or "I'll take your place on the scaffold". But I can't take away your responsibility. I can't forgive what you did. I can't say you didn't do it. I can't make you washed clean. The name for that in primitive Middle Eastern society was scapegoating. You pile the sins of the tribe on a goat and you drive that goat into the desert to die of thirst and hunger and you think you've taken away the sins of the tribe. A positively immoral doctrine that abolishes the concept of personal responsibility on which all ethics and all morals must depend."

Catholics believe this doctrine, as do evangelicals. Sure there are Christians with different beliefs, but if I make a thread about Islam and 72 virgins, I don't have to mention all the dissenters who still call themselves muslim. There are Christians who believe Christ only covers their sin instead of being propitiation for them, but I don't see how they can explain the "nothing impure shall enter the kingdom of heaven" verse (Rev 21:27). Nevertheless, if you had really been following what I've said here you would know that I was tentitively rejecting atonment theology because of it's incongruence with reason, but was open to how to understand it in a more mystical, feminine sense. Logic is yang, and Christianity is a very feminine religion. I don't want to stand against something as a rationalist who subbornly sticks to his human logic.

Whatever. I've studied theology since i was twelve. Get lost

It implies that the merits can be exchanged between conscious beings even though to be free in a moment is to be in total control of which way to turn, so even God couldn't know what you would do except by vision of the future. So if you are in complete control of sin and repentence it would seem you are in full responsibility for it, so that would rule out atonment. Free will entails "individualism". This is what i've said in this entire thread. Look, if this kind of theology makes Christians feel better about themselves then may they feel their best. I think Christianity was founded by "Paul", whoever that was, and it's insistence on spread the word to the corners of the earth is one of its flaws. Why can't Christians just hope and trust that God will have mercy on them without this convoluted theology about substitution? That's what other religions do. Why do Christians feel they are so bad, that they are unforgivable on their own? Why to they have to put that self-blame on others? Now that is a true Christian mystery

Propitiation to my mind is a denial of free will. To be free is to be the only one making the decision. Ratzinger and Aquinas seem very confused. Do others sin when i sin? No but the merits can be exchanged? Someone cannot act as personhood unless his acts fall on him. Aren't they trying to "have their cake and eat too" by saying mercy and justice were balanced in the cruxifiction? Aren't they denying personhood in humans in line with savage beliefs of old? If we are all "one body" then how can they hold some will be damned? Forever a body divided? How unfitting is that

Thoughts:

With regard to why believe in spirituality, it's important to know that the universe is not necessarily fair. It is just, but that' different. Err, i take that back because I have no idea if the universe also is merciful, and to what extent. It might be in an unfair way. I have a twin brother Matthew and I don't care what he does i would never damn him, and i have a pretty strong commitment to morals. He would be standing there, the murderer of himself, and if i could i would still take him to heaven becausr it is that consciousness that i love. It's not just or fair, but love is the meaning of spirituality

I wonder to what extent we should care about the second truth or the reality beyond our own. There may well be a Paramarthika Satya or ultimate realm beyond the empirical, but what of it? Can a good case be made that we should care about this and to what end — Tom Storm

Only if it brings joy. Those thoughts are pointless if they don't make you happy

Nor Spinozism. My point was that you pick and choose rather randomly what is woowoo and what is not when it comes to the philosophy of physics

You seemed to be objecting to a post because of materialism but Spinoza wasn't a materialist. He thought you and the world were God's mind. Do you have cotempt for Daoism or is that ok as well?

"There is a thing confusedly formed
Born before heaven and earth
Silent and void
It stands alone and does not change
Goes round and does not weary
It is capable of being the mother of the world
I know not its name
So I style it 'the way'"
Lao Tzu as quoted in Primal Myths by Barbara Sproul

When applying philosophy to physics the lines can become blurred

Time can be a very hard thing for people because we only have so much of it. If we want everything to be perfect, we have to accept that for every mistake there can be an equal or greater victory.

shit-"philosophy — 180 Proof

Haven't you espoused Spinoza's philosophy in the past? Just saying